


rococo dreaming

by andorgyny



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-30
Updated: 2014-05-30
Packaged: 2018-01-27 14:00:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,415
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1713200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/andorgyny/pseuds/andorgyny
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose considers herself quite lucky that she learned a bit of French in school.</p>
            </blockquote>





	rococo dreaming

Rose considers herself quite lucky that she learned a bit of French in school. She hadn’t really considered much before knocking the Doctor out and jumping on Arthur’s back. There was only this urge to keep a promise to another woman, and if she is honest with herself, to get away from the Doctor for a while.

Hours later, the consequences come rushing in. Oh, there’s no doubt in her mind that the Doctor will find the right time and pick her up in the TARDIS. But he is a notoriously poor driver, and as she sits by the window in her guest room, she wonders if he’s even thinking about getting it right. If he’s too worried to think straight.

She knows she’d be.

There’s a knock on her door. “Come in,” she says in rough French. She looks out at the stars until Reinette joins her on the window seat, wrapped up in robes and long curls falling down her back. The other woman is quiet for a moment.

"He will return soon, dear."

Rose smiles humorlessly. “I know. I thought… but I was wrong. He’ll find me.”

Reinette takes her hand and stares out at the dark sky. “Where do you think you will go when you leave?” Rose points out at a star. ”What is out there?”

Rose’s smile blossoms into something real. “Everything.”

 

Reinette takes a shine to Rose; after all, the girl did risk her life to save a near stranger. Of course, she believes Rose may have had ulterior motives when she jumped through the mirror, but she is older now. Childish fancies don’t suit her as they once did. And men always break their vows.

Rose, as much as she doesn’t like to think of it, is older too. Two months and three days older. She surprises Reinette every day with her adaptability, with her resilience. The Lord only knows how she herself would do in a completely different environment for months on end.

Without much more than a slight grasp of the language. 

Rose has taken to wearing men’s attire during their daily activities, but tonight is a ball, and she has promised to try a gown. As they prepare for the night, Reinette finds herself grinning and laughing and being happier than she has in a long, long time. 

It is hard to have an imaginary friend as an adult, after all. A friend who won’t come when she calls, who leaves days and hours and years in between his visits.

But most of all, it’s ever so nice to have someone to look up to. Because she does. Rose Tyler is everything she saw in the Doctor’s mind and more—Goddess of Time and common woman, a friend and a confidante, a savior. Of everyone, over and over again.

Reinette is not that sort of woman. She is mildly selfish and too content with her life to change it. She is brave but not enough to travel the stars like islands on a ship that isn’t like any ship she’s ever known.

The Doctor will come because Rose is waiting for him. He might have come anyway, but that hardly matters now. 

"I don’t know how you can stand these things," Rose says, plucking at her bodice miserably. "I can barely breathe."

 

The Doctor finds himself in a corridor with Mickey Smith about six hours after he was supposed to rescue Madame de Pompadour from the clockwork droids.

Of course, Rose had taken her gun and given him a smack hard enough to knock him out for several minutes, which in hindsight, makes far more sense than what he was planning to do.

Leave her behind for an eternity. Leave her behind on a dying ship with no way out. No way to see her again. 

When he woke, the thought of what he’d nearly done stunned him into silence.

But now he had to worry about his jeopardy friendly Rose Tyler in addition to the whole of history. History, he could handle—Rose? Perhaps not.

It’s dark, but there’s laughter ahead, and he follows the sound. Mickey’s complaining about something, but he’s not really paying attention because he’s been away from Rose for far too long for his taste. He also might have a bit of a concussion. 

Oh, and Reinette. He really should be worried about her, too. 

The corridor leads them to a ballroom full of partying Frenchmen and women, which is not exactly what he had expected six hours after an invasion of bloodthirsty clockwork droids. 

And then he sees her.

She is beautiful in her silver gown, blond hair piled on top of her head. And there is no doubt that in another world, he might have fallen for her. But she is not the woman he is looking for, she is not the woman who has saved him so many times. She is accomplished and lovely and ambitious, but she is not Rose Tyler. And part of him knows that despite her beauty and wit, she’s really not his type at all.

"There you are," she says as she approaches. "I was beginning to think you would not show up at all. Not that I would tell Rose such a thing, but I am a realist in my heart of hearts, and two months are a long time."

"Of course I would—hold on. Two months?" He frowns. "It’s been six hours."

Her smile fades into something resigned. “Rose knew this would happen. ‘He gets the landings wrong,’ she said. I did not have any idea as to what she meant, but I suppose if my life is a book through which you can skip a great many chapters in a matter of minutes, it should not surprise me that it has been no time at all for you and a lifetime for me.”

"Where is she?" He was a bit eager to leave behind this mess of a day.

Madame de Pompadour gazes at him for a moment before answering. “She is in the gardens.” 

 

Rose sighs. Two months is admittedly longer than she’d thought he’d take. But it is a clear night, she is in a beautiful pink gown and there are worse places to be. 

If she had thought to take her phone, she could have at least had her mother’s company throughout this whole ordeal, but she’d left it on the TARDIS the day she and the Doctor had taken Mickey to that damned spaceship thousands of years in the future.

Her French certainly has improved, though. She wonders if that means that she’s an accomplished woman now, and then shame flushes through her veins. Reinette has been nothing but kind to her since she’d saved the French aristocracy. She’d opened up to Rose about a great many things, like her divorce, her dead children, her inability to have sex, her hopes and dreams and political aspirations. And she hadn’t needed to do that, especially with a woman who was clearly not aristocratic or even bourgeois. 

And Rose knows she will always remember her time in Versailles. Her longing, the feeling of emptiness between her fingers. 

"Rose!" That voice, the voice from her dreams, the voice that has kept her fighting through the days. She stills. 

He’d hurt her. But she understands now (she’s had a lot of time to think about it). Because he was (is?) scared. Scared of losing her, scared of being with her, scared of the silence that falls when a lover dies or moves on. 

She turns around, grinning broadly as he lifts her up and spins her around. 

"Don’t you ever do that to me again," he says against her updo.

She pulls away, rolling her eyes. “You can talk. You were gonna leave me behind!”

"I know," he says, looking down at his feet. "I know." 

"We’ll have to make a pact. No more leaving each other behind."

He smiles down at her. Behind him, she sees Reinette smiling almost proudly. “No more leaving each other behind.”

 

The blue box disappears after hugs are shared and cheeks are kissed. Reinette knows with certainty that she’ll never see her savior again, but that’s alright. Rose Tyler will be magnificent.

And the Doctor? Well, she gave him quite the lecture while leading him to Rose. It won’t be long before he does something about those hearts of his.

Reinette turns back to the party and hums softly to herself.


End file.
